Cuts are invariably cruel, no matter how necessary they are deemed. But there's one that stands out as much for the way it was sold as the pain it will bring to those least able to absorb it. The victims, at last count, are the 427,000 of California's most vulnerable citizens who rely on the In-Home Supportive Services program to help them with cooking, cleaning, laundry, running errands and taking their medicine. "Activities of daily living" in social service parlance, which would otherwise be provided - in many cases much more poorly and in every case much more expensively - by nursing homes.

According to the figures as of Friday afternoon, approximately $95 million of the projected "savings" in the IHSS $2 billion state budget will be exacted from recipients - low-income seniors, the blind, the disabled - who will lose some, if not all services. In addition, all recipients are to be fingerprinted, along with their care providers, often family members, who henceforth have to undergo background checks, which the providers themselves have to pay for.

But we shouldn't feel too much sympathy. According to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who made IHSS a centerpiece of TV commercials extolling his budgetary rectitude, the program is filled with "fraud, waste and abuse." That the new rules will cost an unknown amount of money to implement seems to be beside the point, as are concerns that needed caregivers might think twice about jumping through such hoops to work for little more than minimum wage.

There was also something, well, fraudulent, in the pitch. In various venues, Schwarzenegger claimed that a staggering 25 percent of the program was subject to fraud, a figure that found its way into official documents, county grand jury reports and the mouths of district attorneys.

But the figure seems to have been pulled out of thin air. "I've never had anyone tell me where that number comes from," Virginia Bella, the IHSS specialist in the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office, told the Sacramento Bee. In fact, repeated investigations, including one conducted by Schwarzenegger's own "Quality Assurance" survey in 2007, have found the incidence of IHSS fraud in the program to be minimal - 1 percent at most.

In the past five years, the state attorney general's office has investigated just 306 complaints, filing charges against 116 defendants, The Chronicle's Victoria Colliverreported earlier this month. In which case the extra savings the state is supposed to reap from tackling such alleged misdeeds is questionable, to say the least.

Not that there isn't the occasional case of serious fraud: On Thursday, the Los Angeles district attorney's office busted an alleged $2 million scam involving a county-administered IHSS program there.

"Yes, any service can be abused," said a professional not connected to the program or advocacy groups, but whose work requires confidentiality. "But in the 25 years I've worked with people who use IHSS services, I haven't encountered it. I have found IHSS to be a lifesaver, and a highly effective means of providing care while keeping people at home, rather than moving them into a state nursing home, at a much higher cost to the taxpayer."

Luckily for Gov. Schwarzenegger, he probably won't find himself in that situation.

California R.I.P? This exchange, picked up by former Chronicle tech writer Deborah Gage at a Churchill Club breakfast earlier this month in Silicon Valley, seems somewhat apt under the circumstances. Mike Moritz, the Sequoia Capitalpartner, famed for his "R.I.P. Good Times" memo on the parlous state of venture capital, asked state Controller John Chiang the following: "Today, California is known as the ghost of the future of the U.S. How acute do you think the dilemma is?"

"We're in very dire straits," responded Chiang, "There's no transparency and accountability in California. It's ... not healthy for America's or California's enterprise."